In a compartment of a vehicle, various information are provided. For example, the various information may include information indicating a vehicle state, such as a vehicle speed, an engine revolution speed, a shift position, fuel remaining, a water temperature or the like. For example, the various information may include a map for navigation, setting information of an air conditioning device, audio information or the like. Recently, the various information include a night view display for a driving assistance, and information of a mobile terminal carried into the vehicle.
The various information are displayed on a display device equipped to the vehicle, and the display device may be provided by multiple types of devices. For example, the display device may be provided by a head-up display, a liquid crystal display displaying the map for the navigation or the like. For example, a meter panel that shows the vehicle speed may be provided by a liquid crystal display, and is capable of displaying the various information. In this case, the meter panel may be deemed as a display device.
As described above, since a quantity of types of the various information has increased, it is realistically difficult to previously assume all display patterns. A display pattern defines, with respect to one information, a display device and a display region of the display device corresponding to a circumstance. When multiple display devices are equipped to the vehicle, it is more difficult to assume all display patterns. Hereinafter, the information displayed on the display device is referred to as display image, and the region of the display device in which the display image is displayed is referred to as a display area. The display area may also be simply referred to as an area.
In the invention disclosed in JP 2009-140488 A, a priority level is assigned to each display area of the display device, and the display area to display each display image is dynamically determined by comparing the priority level of each display area with one another. With this configuration, the display area for displaying each display image can be determined even though all combination patterns of display image and display area are not previously defined.
The display images include a display image that is necessary to be displayed even by displacing another display image. The display images include a display image indicating the same contents with another display image being currently displayed on one display area. In this case, a repeated display of the display image is considered to be not necessary. For example, the display image indicating “the vehicle speed” may include the display image A of an analogue speedometer and the display image D of a digital speedometer displaying the vehicle speed by numeric. In some types of vehicles, one of the display image A and the display image D is necessarily required to be displayed even by displacing another display image and the display image A and the display image D are required to be not displayed concurrently together.
However, in the technology disclosed in the above-described JP 2009-140488 A, each display image is assigned to the display area according to the priority level. Thus, in the technology disclosed in the above-described JP 2009-140488 A, the display images are difficult to be displayed based on a predetermined rule. For example, as described above, the display images are difficult to be displayed based on the predetermined rule in which one of the display image A and the display image D is required to be necessarily displayed and one of the display image A and the display image D is required to be not displayed when the other one of the display image A and the display image D is currently being displayed.